


Background Noise

by Kammy



Series: TG Femslash Week [2]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Day 2, F/F, Humor, Posted late, Sound, lots of gay jokes, tg femslash week, vague humorous references to sexual acts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 18:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6089701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kammy/pseuds/Kammy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaya can hear everything, so it's hard for her not to get distracted by all the details.</p><p>(Or, Kaya attracts Akira's attention, and Anteiku has to adopt a new strategy to avoid scrutiny.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Background Noise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gatorghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gatorghost/gifts).



> Damn, this was so hard to write. I'm bad at humor. Or anything lighthearted for that matter. But I promised this to Snappy, so here it is. Also, dreamydark wanted to see this finished, so shout out to them!
> 
> Written for TG Femslash Week, Day 2 Prompt: Sound. Of course, it is super late.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Kaya heard her before she saw her.

There were a thousand noises that she could hear all at once, but the sound of the woman’s steps cut through all of them: firm, proud, grounded even in five inch heels. Kaya found herself smiling at the sound, turned away though she was to polish a glass.

Her hearing had always been excellent, even for a ghoul. In battle, she used it so sense the coordinates of her enemies. Here, in this small space, she hear make out the woman’s location down to the very inch.

The woman’s heels clacked imperiously, and then stopped. She was right behind Kaya, sitting down, leaning against the bar. Kaya turned.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked.

The woman was fiercely stunning, dressed in a soft, feminine manner but with the poise that betrayed strength and control. Her neckline was low, very low, but Kaya was too classy to look down. And why would she? The human lady was looking right at her with the sharp, glittering eyes.

Kaya could hear as the woman suddenly took a deep, quiet breath, not breaking eye contact. “Yes, could I have…?”

She fumbled a bit ordering her drink—not too familiar with the different wine types, it seemed, so she wasn’t much of a casual drinker. But besides that, she was very clearly human

Kaya told herself that she wouldn’t chat with her. She was old enough that she’d given up on beautiful, fierce women. Life hadn’t exactly given her much luck in romantic pursuits, and the few girlfriends she’d had in the past hadn’t lasted long. She didn’t even want to think about how troublesome it would be to pursue a human woman.

Still, she heard a sigh and couldn’t help but turn. It wasn’t a sad sigh, but a frustrated one.

Kaya didn’t ask what the problem was. Instead, she smiled. “How about another drink?”

The woman nodded, not looking too forlorn or disappointed. Kaya slid her a glass and a bottle, letting the woman pour it herself.

Her name, as it turned out, was Akira.

She was twenty one, five years younger than Kaya herself.

She was also a CCG investigator.

 

* * *

 

Irimi heard those heels again—or rather, different ones, but the second she heard them she had a hunch. She turned, and it was as she thought: Akira. This time, she was dressed more casually, but Irimi could still hear her clacking heels as she came in.

“Meeting anyone this time?” Kaya.

“No,” Akira said. “Just here to wind down.”

Kaya smiled, and she saw Akira smiled back in response. It was different from the bitter smirk she had last time. “Will I get you anything, then?”

Akira kept coming back, kept smiling a little more each time. Looking a little happier. Irimi started to listen for her. She started to be able to pay attention to the little noises: the way her breaths sounded different from everyone else’s, the slight hum she often gave as she smirked at something.

The day she finally heard Akira laugh, she realized she was in trouble.

“You just laughed at your own joke,” Kaya pointed out, smothering her own giggles behind her hand.

Akira snorted, lightly putting her hand on the table. Her cheeks were flushed a little from the drinking. “Well, if you’d met Takizawa, you’d—”

Akira’s laughter rang out like bells in the bar. Loud. Clear. Beautiful. Kaya found herself laughing along, her ears practically buzzing with the sound. She could almost feel the sound ringing through her, pulling her own laugh out. And… it had been a while since she had laughed herself, she realized. The sound was strange to her, especially layered over Akira’s. Strange, but not unpleasant.

She liked this woman. She wished…

_Shit._

“So,” Akira said, taking a deep breath as the last of her laughter bubbled out. “I’ve never seen you socialize with anyone else here.”

“I suppose you haven’t.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

_Oh shit you did not just ask that._

“Oh… not really.”

“Not really?” Akira asked. “That’s a yes or no question, you know. What does having not-really-a-boyfriend mean?”

Kaya stared at her. Akira’s face was flushed, her pupils dilated. She’d been drinking, but not so much that she wasn’t thinking carefully bout this. Kaya could hear the way her breathing had sped up, the way her voice was just a little sharper and faster.

“I mean, no. I don’t have a boyfriend.”

Maybe Akira didn’t mean it the way Kaya thought she meant it. After all, if she had learned anything about straight women, it was that they could be astoundingly oblivious to any sort of possibility that it sounded like they were hitting on another woman.

“I was wondering,” Akira said. “If we could perhaps meet somewhere else? Get to know each other. I mean, I don’t have many. Friends.”

Irimi heard such silence from Akira. The woman was holding her breath as she waited, not making the tiniest move as though she would scare off some precious prey if she did. She seemed anxious. Insecure, for herself. Vulnerable.

Kaya felt her heart soften. This was the sort of woman she could fall in love with. But she was old, even if only five years older than Akira herself. She was burned out on accepting offers of friendship and hoping that the other woman was also looking for something more. She was burned out on falling in love waiting for it to turn to shit.

She was burned out on hope. But she wanted to let Akira down gently.

“I’m not the most fun person to get to know,” Irimi said. “I’m rather boring. Honestly, all I do most of the time is sleep.”

Akira stared blankly at her, and Irimi suddenly felt obligated to explain.

“This isn’t my only job,” she said. “I have a day job as well—normally by the time I’m done working I’m too tired to be up and about having fun or getting to know people.”

“What’s your other job?” Akira asked.

“Uh…” No way was she telling Akira about Anteiku. “Nothing important. Just enough to wear me out by the end of the day. Anyway—how about some other time?”

Akira let out a contemplative hum, and Irimi smiled even as she felt something freeze inside her.

No way in hell was she letting Akira find out about Anteiku.

 

* * *

 

_Fuck everything, she found out._

Akira’s heels sounded different on the floor of Anteiku, but the step was every bit as confident, even as it slowed down. Akira look a bit surprised, raising her eyebrows.

“Hello, Kaya,” Akira said, lowering her head a bit and smiling slightly. “Nice to see you again.”

Koma shot her a grin and wagged his eyebrows. “Kaya, huh?”

Kaya didn’t look at him, but smiled back at Akira. “Found time out of your busywork at the CCG to come and find me, huh?”

She could see Koma’s grin stiffen in the corner of her eye. In the background, she heard Touka put down the dishes a little too loudly.

“Yes,” Akira said. “I find it strange that your co-workers at the bar don’t know about your other job here. Or anything about you, really. You’re quite the mysterious type, aren’t you?”

Kaya smiled. “I guess you could say that.”

Koma laughed and patted Kaya on the back. “Alright, made yourself a buddy then, Kaya? Well, I’ll leave you two to it.”

Kaya didn’t have to watch as he shimmied out, still grinning desperately, probably to go alert the manager. Akira hadn’t moved her eyes away from Kaya’s yet. They’d been staring at each other for a while.

“Well then,” Kaya said. “Can I get you something?”

“Your number.”

She heard Touka choke.

“Hey, Irimi,” Touka said. “You know what? I’m going to take my lunch break right now.”

Touka never took a lunch break, but Kaya nodded. Akira sat at the counter.

“So, this is your other job,” Akira said, looking around. “After how avoidant you were being about the whole thing, I was hoping it would turn out to be something a bit wilder, like stripping.” Akira’s breath caught just slightly. “I mean expecting. Not hoping. Expecting.”

“Leaving now,” Touka muttered before barreling out the door.

Akira didn’t even have the grace to look flushed or embarrassed at her slip. She just kept staring Irimi down, waiting.

“So,” Irimi said.

And they talked.

 

* * *

 

Kaya could hear every conversation in the background, could make out every whisper. But she hadn’t expected Akira could hear as well.

The conversation was in the corner, between two ghouls. She knew them in passing: two young men who’d moved to the 20th ward recently. Peaceful. Not the sort to ever start trouble. Just the sort of customer Anteiku was made for, really.

“It’s just amazing,” one of them was saying. “This place is so great. I mean, the fact that people like _us_ can just have somewhere to sit, good coffee to drink—be ourselves. I love it.”

“Yeah,” the other guy said back. “I wish there was a place like this in every ward... it’s nice to be able to hang out with your own without worrying about getting jumped and beaten.”

The first guy nodded, and sighed. “Having a safe place. It’s just—”

Irimi didn’t look over to the two ghouls. That might have drawn Akira’s attention to them, and that was the last thing she wanted. So she just smiled, still talking. The two ghoul’s conversation throbbed in the background of her senses, like a needle in her side: just painful enough to stop from focusing.

Then, Akira turned. One of the ghouls was getting emotional.

“It’s just,” he said, sniffing. “After what happened to Emiya….”

“It’s okay, man. It’s okay.”

Akira’s attention was turned away from Irimi for the moment, so Irimi tried to send them a “shut the fuck up” glance. It didn’t work. Luckily though, they left soon on their own, anyway.

“What were they talking about?” Akira asked.

_Shit. Fucking shit._

“Well,” Kaya said gracefully, a smile still on her face. “A café can be a lot of things to a lot of people.”

“That sounds evasive.”

_Shit. Fuck this. I’m going to find those guys and fuck them up later._

“Well, Anteiku does mean ‘safe haven.’ To some people who have gone through things, I’m sure it’s a place of comfort and relief. A safe place.”

“Some people? A safe place?” Akira’s voice had a sharp undertone to it. “What exactly do you mean?”

Kaya looked at her. Sidestepping wouldn’t do any good—it would just make her more curious, more liable to find out on her own. She needed an answer.

So Kaya thought of one.

“Well,” she said. “You see…”

 

* * *

 

“I’m very sorry Yoshimura,” Kaya finished later, after explaining everything. “I just…”

“It’s alright,” he said, eyes still wrinkled with his usual smile. “We’ll adjust. It’s not a bad cover story.”

“If she comes back here…”

“She will, probably. We’ll be prepared.”

He called everyone in for a meeting. Everyone—even Anteiku’s peripheral members, Hinami and Yomo. Once everyone had settled down, he spoke.

“Everyone, we’ve drawn some CCG attention recently.”

Everyone immediately looked at Touka.

“Oh, fuck off,” she growled.

“No, it wasn’t Touka this time,” Yoshimura said. “It happened quite by accident. Anyway, how it happened is not the point. What you all need to know is that there is going to be a slight change in our image from here on out.”

Everyone nodded, waiting for Yoshimura to continue.

“Until further notice, we are a gay café.”

No one had noticed Kaneki sipping some coffee in the back, but they certainly noticed when he spit it out.

 

* * *

 

Kaya sat back, trying to soothe her nerves even as the ensuing commotion washed over her.

“Sir! Are you saying we should… pretend to all be gay?”

“Don’t worry, Kaneki,” Yoshimura said comfortingly. “I’m sure you won’t have much trouble.”

Kaneki spluttered.

“I’m sorry,” Yoshimura said. “I didn’t realize that sounded like a joke until I said it.”

Kaneki made a noise that reminded Irimi of a dying cat. Nishiki laughed.

“Hey,” Touka cut in. “We need to get rid of Nishiki if we’re going to do this.”

“Huh? What’s your deal?” Nishiki snapped.

“Well, you’re too straight. You’ll ruin our cred.”

“Fuck you, I’m bi.”

This statement didn’t even get the blink of an eye from anyone in the room, except Kaneki who let out a shrill, “What?!”

Touka, and everyone else, ignored him. “Well you _act_ straight.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Nishiki asked grumpily.

“You know, being an asshole...”

“Enough,” Yoshimura said. “There’s no reason to fight about any of this. We will from now on present ourselves as a gay café. This will be our cover story. Will anyone have any trouble with this?”

There were murmured no’s throughout the room.

“Excellent. Have a nice evening everyone.”

 

* * *

 

“So, how to we make ourselves convincing?” Kaya asked.

“We shouldn’t have to change much,” Yomo said. “Maybe have advertisements up for other places, popular events in the community, meet-ups…”

“Oh, we already have that,” Kaya said, flicking a poster. “Koma advertises for his gay group on the bulletin board.”

Everyone looked at the poster. It had a headline in bold, capital letters.

ARE YOU A MAN’S MAN?

COME RELEASE YOUR INNER GORILLA WITH THE REAL ROUGH CROWD.

It also had a time and a location, but Kaya found that less important.

“Koma,” Kaneki asked, blinking in bewilderment. “You’re gay?”

“Hey,” Koma said. “Those posters are for meet-ups with my old gang—okay, okay, it’s also a gay meet-up thing.”

“Anyway,” Kaya said, trying to move the conversation along. “Perhaps we should have popular gay books on the shelves? I don’t read much, so I can’t really say what we might need.”

Kaneki looked like he was about to say something, but he immediately closed his mouth.

“I can probably get some things,” Touka said. “I’ll ask Yoriko—she’s into some comics like that.”

Kaneki’s eyes shot up with alarm. “Um,” he said. “I think those comics are probably not…”

“Excuse me, dumbass?” Touka growled. “You gonna say something about Yoriko’s taste?”

“N-no…”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Okay,” Yomo said. “I suppose I’ll go ask Uta how we can make ourselves more convincing. He would know.”

No one questioned this. If anyone knew how make their café convincingly gay, it would be Uta.

 

* * *

 

From what Irimi heard, Uta had stared up blankly at Yomo, eyebrows lifting above the sunglasses he was wearing at the time. And told Yomo that everyone just had to “be themselves” and “maybe add some strippers.”

“Does Uta know what a normal café is?” Kaya asked.

“Probably not,” Yomo conceded.

 

* * *

 

Akira came back. Irimi smiled at her, ears ringing with something that could have been panic or excitement. It was indistinguishable at this point.

Either way, it faded when Kaya spotted a man beside her.

“Hello,” Kaya said, keeping calm. “Who is this?”

“This is Yoshida,” Akira said. “An acquaintance.”

“From work?”

“Yes.”

Kaya eyed them. They didn’t have suitcases. That made her feel a bit better. A bit.

“Nice to meet you!” he said. “Uh, Mado told me a little about you.”

Kaya nodded. There was some chat. She didn’t pay much attention to it, mostly because she was too busy listening to Touka hissing in the background.

“Holy shit! Dove lesbian just entered… with a guy?”

“No!” Koma said. “How will Irimi ever stand the heartbreak?”

Maybe Kaya grit her teeth a little under her smile. But she continued the conversation. It was important to try and figure out whether they were here on suspicions or…

“Yoshida is here to take advantage of the atmosphere,” Akira said.

Take advantage of the “atmosphere.” Well then.

“He’s gay?” Kaya asked when the guy had left to trail after Ikuma, a local ghoul street musician.

Akira raised an eyebrow. “Is there some other reason I would bring him here? He mentioned it offhand, so I thought I’d recommend the place.”

“…Oh.”

“So anyway,” Akira said, voice a little tight. “You work at a… place like this. I was wondering what that says about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know,” Akira said, a little testily.

“Is there a reason you’re asking.”

Koma, the damn bastard, knew she could hear. “Oooooooh things are starting to get interesting!”

Kaya sighed. This would be a long day.

 

* * *

 

The next few weeks weren’t… bad. Well, they were actually probably terrible, something akin to the days leading up to The End of their life at Anteiku. But still. Other than that, they were good.

Akira came almost every day. Every day, she rushed a little faster to Kaya’s spot behind the counter, laughed a bit louder, smiled wider. The two of them started to go on walks on the few occasions Kaya got off work early enough to be worth it.

“You know,” Akira said. “I feel that you’re hyper aware of certain things. You always pick up on the little details.”

“Oh, hm? Thanks.”

“It’s annoying.”

“Huh?”

Akira looked at her, not blinking. “I feel like you’re always listening, but I never have your real attention. I want that. I want your undivided focus.”

What was the downside to all this? Well, that had to be all the CCG investigators that suddenly started hanging out at Anteiku. Frequently. Just about every day, in fact.

“What the hell!” Touka fumed privately on one particular busy day. “Are they trying to smoke us out?”

“No,” Yomo said. “They’re just gay.”

“Well, fuck them! They’re making our actual customers uncomfortable!”

Irimi half-listened to Touka fuming, and half-listened to Koma, in the corner, talking to some young investigators.

“…and that’s the story about how the devil ape defeated his foes with the power of group, male on male—”

Or Yoshimura in his office where no one could see him, tiredly taking out a bottle of aged blood wine and gulping it heavily.

Or Kaneki staring like a deer in the headlights at some man who had just entered, a large man with heavy eyebrows who… oh… it was that investigator who Kaneki had fought a while back. Well then.

“I feel like we’ve met before,” The investigator said, eyeing Kaneki intensely.

“Ahahaha,” someone laughed close to him. “Amon, you flirt!”

Kaneki looked around, alarmed, as though his coworkers might step in. “Um, well,” he began before gulping.

And Kaya felt a rush of alarm bells ringing in her head. This whole thing was terrible. She wished she’d never said anything. The investigator would find out and then Kaneki would get targeted and the CCG would get suspicious and Anteiku would get burned and it would be her fault and—

“Are you listening?” Akira said.

Kaya blinked. “Oh. Well, yes. I just—”

“You’re getting off your shift, right?”

“Y-yes, but…”

Akira snatched her by the hand, and in a second, they were out of the building.

 

* * *

 

Akira pulled her along, right to a corner behind the building where no one could see them.

“Kaya,” she said.

“Yes?” Kaya asked, absently. Even outside, she could still hear the murmurs going on inside, and could imagine all the scenarios for how this all could go wrong. The possibilities flooded her head, dizzying her. They were likely already suspected. Hell, Akira probably already had her suspicions at this point. She was too smart not to.

 But then, Akira touched her shoulder.

She didn’t say anything else, but just leaned in, pressing her lips lightly to Kaya’s. Kaya froze a moment, and then wrapped her hands around Akira’s waist.

For a moment, all the background noise disappeared.

This would probably be the death of her—of them. But perhaps that was a thought to deal with later. Another time. Maybe it was okay to just enjoy this, for the moment.

With that in mind, she lost herself in the sound of Akira’s sighs, the rustle of her clothes as Kaya held her tight, and the sound of her heels as she stepped forward, pressing herself warmly against Kaya’s body.

**Author's Note:**

> Btw, literally everyone in this fic is queer. Everyone. 
> 
> "Even Kaneki, who was all nervous about it?" you ask.
> 
> *Especially* Kaneki.


End file.
